Handel: Israel in Egypt, HWV54

This performance was recorded in Munich in 1959. The soloists include Annelies Kupper and Elisabeth Fellner-Köberle sopranos, Hertha Töpper alto and Lorenz Fehenberger tenor. The bonus is Jochum conducting Bruckner’s First Symphony, also in Munich in 1959.

Live recording from Philharmonie Luxembourg, Théatre des Champs Elysées, Auditorium Dijon, October 2009.

For more than two and a half centuries Israel in Egypt has remained an exceptional choral work. Of all the oratorios written by the composer, none, not even Messiah attains the variety of its choral and orchestral writing.

Nowhere else except in his Dixit Dominus does Handel demand so much of the singers of the double chorus. The dramatic potential of the chorus is exploited down to the smallest detail through the use of scoring mostly for eight voices, thus accentuating the effects of mass and contrast. Every device in the choral arsenal is brought into play, including fugue and double fugue, recitative, arioso, homophonic declamation, and the figuralism (word-painting) is taken to the extreme. The two choruses interpolate and the colourful orchestral accompaniment is of a power that is rare.

Georg Friedrich Händel’s great choral oratorio, “Israel in Egypt” is the most valuable gift the composer ever gave to choral music. The chorus functions as protagonist in this powerful work, which tells the Old Testament story of Exodus with telling dramatic intensity. Two multiple prize-winning, major ensemble, Concerto Köln, the well known period instrument ensemble and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, joined forces for the first time in November of 2008. The strong individual characteristics of the vocal soloists combine impressively with the chorus and orchestra for a multi-layered interpretation that is concurrently borne by a clear, common musical objective. This recording features the original three-part version from 1739.

Live-recording; Munich, Prinzregententheater, Nov. 2008

Booklet Notes: English, German, French

Libretto: English, German

During his lifetime, Handel revisited his score of Israel in Egypt many times to create a more ‘audience friendly work’, meaning that by the early nineteenth century there were several versions available, often vastly truncated to satisfy the musical appetites of the day.

During his career as a conductor Felix Mendelssohn conducted Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt more than any other work. While in London, Mendelssohn discovered the original score to the work, and consequently produced a new critical edition in line with this newly-discovered, much longer manuscript source.

Mendelssohn performed his new arrangement of Israel in Egypt at the Lower Rhine Musical Festival in Düsseldorf on 26 May 1833 and in doing so successfully returned the work to the concert stage.

CPO is delighted to add this sacred work to their catalogue to celebrate Handel’s 250th anniversary year.

Recorded in the BadnerHalle Rastatt, June/September 2008

Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt was written three years before the Messiah and, like the Messiah, is somewhat atypical of the composer’s oratorios.

Scored for double chorus and an orchestra using trombones, trumpets, timpani, woodwinds and strings with continuo, Israel in Egypt contains relatively little solo material but is dominated by large-scale virtuosic choruses that fully exploit Handel’s lavish and sophisticated word-painting.

Set pieces for which the work is most famous include swarming strings representing flies in ‘He spake the word’, the furious brass and timpani in ‘He gave them hailstones for rain’ and the famous depiction of frogs in the aria ‘Their land brought forth frogs’.